RPGs have slowly become a well accepted genre in the mainstream audience and it’s no surprise to see both very big AAA titles as well as many indie incursions in that genre. The good thing is, Linux seem to be pretty popular among those who make RPGs, and there’s a decent amount to expect within this year.

Overall, 11 are already confirmed (6 AAA and 5 indies), 6 are unknown at this stage and 2 are clearly not planned for Linux. You can compare these figures with what’s planned for Simulation Games and FPS for Linux in 2015.

Pillars of Eternity

It was the most successful video game funding on Kickstarter at that time (with close to 4 million USD, including Linux support) and it’s planned to be released at the end of March 2015. It’s developed by Obsidian (of KOTOR 2, NeverWinter Nights 2 and Fallout: New Vegas fame) and should very much be a good old RPG a la Baldur / Planescape Torment. Paradox Interactive is publishing it, which is another reason to be enthusiast about since they have supported Linux several times up until now.

Torment: Tides of Numenera

Another huge Kickstarter success at the time, beating Pillars of Eternity‘s budget by a hair’s breadth (at 4.18 million USD), this Torment is a spiritual successor to the excellent Planescape: Torment from Black Isle Studios. It will use the Unity game engine, and is supposed to ship in late 2015 now.

Darkest Dungeon

An upcoming roguelike, dungeoncrawler game by indie developers Red Hook studios. Unline other roguelike games, it’s a 2D side scroller. It uses torches as a gameplay element : you need to provision enough torches as you venture into deeper parts of the dungeon, as the screen dims to dark progressively. It was release as an Early Access game in January 2015, but its final release date is unknown.

Dragon Fin Soup

This is the first title from the developer Grimm Bros, and it’s an action RPG with regular story elements as well as a Roguelike Survival mode without any story where you will strive to avoid death (since a single death is game over in this mode). It’s not clear yet when it will be released but it’s already in alpha.

Frontiers

A large-scale, ambitious RPG a la Daggerfall, mixing exploration and survival in a huge world composed of many regions to venture in. It looks quite pretty as well. The Early Access version was available from December, and the release will be sometimes in this year, when it’s done.

SanctuaryRPG

A humorous ASCII based retro RPG, currently in Early Access for Windows, but with a Linux version planned down the road:

We’re still working on it! No ETA yet as we’re still ironing out some issues, but it’ll be here ASAP

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a very ambitious RPG coming on all platforms, taking place in Medieval Europe (but there are not fantasy elements here, no dragons and orcs). You play the role of a young man who has lost everything to war and who gets involved into a large scale conspiracy. It looks extremely good, and I wonder what kind of machine will be needed to make it run well (it uses CryEngine 3). No clear idea about the release date, but it looks like Q4 2015 is a target at the moment, so there’s some chance it slips into 2016 at some point. EDIT (March 15 2015): As pointed in the comments, it’s now quite clear this game will only make it to Linux by the first half of 2016, according to this Czech source)

Serpent in the Staglands

A isometric 3D game taking place in the late bronze age, featuring non-linear gameplay, magic, aptitudes and so on. It looks like it will have solid mechanics, even if graphically it looks a little dated. As for its release date, it’s not clear but it should happen within the first half of 2015, with May being a tentative target.

Witcher 3

Until very recently we did not know if it was coming to Linux or not. Witcher 2 came out of nowhere last year and Witcher 3 was first announced for SteamOS back in 2014, then the announcement was denied by CD Projekt RED. And whenever they were asked, they tended to avoid the question. But following the GDC 2015 announcements on Steam and the recent confirmation by CD Projekt Red, we are now confident it will come on our platform as well. A big question mark remains : who will do the part, and how will that perform versus the Windows version ? And how long we will have to wait after the Windows release…

Shadowrun : Hong Kong

(EDIT: Added March 16th 2015) Following a very successful Kickstarter (again! this is trend we have here…) after their two initial episodes (Dragonfall being the better one), we now expect this Hong Kong episode to hit the market around the middle of 2015. If this episode is as successful as the others, it looks like the series is not going to end anytime soon.

Shroud of the Avatar

(EDIT: Added March 16th 2015) This one is a strange one - in between a full fledged MMORPG and a traditional game. It’s already available as Early Access, and constantly updated. There is apparently a single player adventure planned for the end of 2015 (at least the first Episode of it) and Linux is anyway one of the supported platforms.

Divinity: Original Sin

(EDIT: Added March 16th 2015) It’s late for Linux after the 2014 release on Windows, but the developers are still working on it :

The long Linux delay is unfortunate but we think a lot of players are going to be really surprised and happy with what we’re working on, and hopefully we’ll be able to continue to support Linux over different games as a result of the effort it’s taking now. Anyway, it’s a long story but the bottom line is: it’s coming and we’re working hard on making it good.

It’s still unclear when the Linux version will come out, but from what the devs are saying it’s likely to take several more months.

Not Yet Confirmed: Unsure IF or WHEN…

• CyberPunk 2077: the other big RPG developed by CD Projekt Red. There are still no news regarding its release date, and even less information about a potential Linux release, while Witcher 3 can give us hope…
• Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord: while the previous Warband in the series was released on Mac and Linux, so far there were no annoucements regarding the availability of Bannerlord on our platform.
• Moon Hunters:  following a successful Kickstarter, this game remains unique in its genre: it hints at providing a totally unique experience every time you play, by having the world around you react to your actions. Sadly, there are no news regarding a potential Linux version at this time.
• Blackguards 2: no confirmation at this stage but we have heard the following from the developer:

At the moment we don’t have any concrete plans about doing a Linux version but this is definitely something we already thought about.

• **Citizen of Earth: **it’s already out on Windows, but the Linux version is not 100% confirmed at this stage.

Ryan here (game director of Citizens of Earth). We still hope to do the Linux version, but during development the cost quoted to us for the port was prohibitively high and we were already over-budget.

• else Heart Break: this game brings you to a far away city where bits have replaced atoms… it’s a story driven game, letting you interact with lines of codes on top of the regular point and click - it looks refreshing, but no confirmation for Linux at the moment:

Not decided yet, but pretty soon! It will be on Mac and PC, probably Linux too.PC and Mac during Early Access”.

Not Coming for Sure in 2015

• Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: Square Enix. Mouhahaha.
• Heroes Might and Magix III: HD Edition: Again, it’s unlikely we will ever get a native version of that game on Linux.

In case you see any correct to make, please comment or contact me for modifications.